This week introduces some key background concepts on studying the PRC (People’s Republic of China), its governance, and its position as a global technology power.

This week discusses some foundational concepts to understand the global implications of advanced AI, including its enormous geopolitical implications, risks, and what drives AI progress.

This week discusses some foundational concepts to understand the global implications of advanced AI, including its enormous geopolitical implications, risks, and what drives AI progress.

China’s AI regulatory landscape is shaped by the PRC’s political institutions, regulatory processes, and the country’s internal and global strategic ambitions. This week builds context on how the PRC’s AI regulations are made, which is fundamental to understanding emerging AI developments in China and the future of global AI regulation.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang describes the necessary inputs to AI as a "five-layer cake": with AI progress requiring Energy, Chips, Infrastructure, Models, and Applications. In many ways, Chips have become the face of the global AI race between the US and China, with access to computing chips posing one of the main bottlenecks and points of leverage to national dominance in frontier AI. This week offers a tour of the global chip industry, its importance, and its significance to China and vice versa.

As policymakers and the public grow more aware of the global risks posed by advanced AI, safe AI development is becoming an increasingly mainstream concern in the West. Given the global nature of AI risk and China’s status as an AI superpower, familiarity with China’s AI safety landscape is important to understanding the state of AI safety as a whole.

Understanding how China views its own place in global AI development and governance dynamics will help strategists and policymakers navigate the historic transformations unfolding.